


Our Veins Are Busy

by SilverBird13



Category: Bride of Re-Animator (1989), Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: Autopsies, Gore, Herbert being his creepy self, M/M, Sorry Dan, Surgery, Symbolism, Vivisection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 11:20:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5002795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverBird13/pseuds/SilverBird13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Herbert’s small, sharp figure stands poised at the foot of a surgical table that appears to be situated in the center of an operating room.  As Dan’s gaze continues to travel across his own naked body while he fruitlessly tries to thrash his limbs, Herbert’s lips curl into a smile that is sickeningly tight against the stark whiteness of his teeth, his skin. </p><p>'Let’s begin.'"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Veins Are Busy

**Author's Note:**

> Done for Goretober 2015, this time featuring actual gore.

Dan has never known anything like the smoldering thickness of Peru’s humidity. Even the worst Illinois heat wave cannot compare to the stifling air of the jungle, and it is only when the night simmers into something bearable around 3 AM that he is able to settle in his restless exhaustion and fall asleep, unaware that he has done so until he opens his eyes once again.

But he cannot blink.

_Dan’s eyes are splayed open, and he can see surgical pins holding his lids at the level of his eyebrows as his pupils flicker helplessly about._

_“Now, there we are!”_

_Herbert’s small, sharp figure stands poised at the foot of a surgical table that appears to be situated in the center of an operating room. As Dan’s gaze continues to travel across his own naked body while he fruitlessly tries to thrash his limbs, Herbert’s lips curl into a smile that is sickeningly tight against the stark whiteness of his teeth, his skin._

_“Let’s begin.”_

_Dan looks away from Herbert, chokes back a sob he wouldn’t even be able to express as he sees Meg, his parents, and his sister looking on, their faces somber and lifeless behind the operating theatre’s glass. Anger momentarily overshadows fear as he looks again to Herbert, who is now clad in a surgical cap and cloak, a scalpel at the ready. He turns to his audience, acknowledges them with a polite nod, blending seamlessly into the white of the room save for the sudden blackness of his glasses and the glint of the scalpel he wields in bare hands._

_Herbert’s smile widens as Dan’s gaze remains steady on him, following his every movement as he bends forwards and slits Dan from sternum to navel in one fluid slide._

_The pain is cold, the long incision icy with panic instead of the searing heat of a common wound. Dan’s opened belly seizes in fevered panic, his voiceless throat constricted with the need to wretch. His eyes once again flicker desperately to Meg, to his sister, to the space his parents no longer stand in. Their expressions remain as passively sorrowful as before, and Dan feels the fury he had reserved for Herbert extend to them as well._

_“Oh, Daniel. Don’t fuss.”_

_Herbert is beside him now, running his free hand along Dan’s frozen cheeks and drawn mouth. As Dan feels a press of pursed lips at the center of his forehead, there is a sudden horrible tug of released pressure in his belly as Herbert pulls a writhing purple length of flesh free from his slit abdomen. It resembles nothing he has ever seen in his anatomy textbooks or even in his experiments with Herbert, and he feels the heaviness of futility settle in his chest as he watches Herbert present his findings to the audience that has faded away behind the glass._

_“It’s just us now-no need to be shy, Daniel. Let’s proceed.”_

_Herbert pulls out more alien, coiling shapes, black and pink and steaming from the sudden change in their environment. He cradles each one gently, gives an approving smile to their former host before setting them down and out of Dan’s sight._

_“Just a few more…”_

_A soft wave of warmth ripples through Dan at the cooed words. Horrified, he feels himself begin to stiffen as Herbert continues to remove the squirming ropes of tissue from his abdomen, stopping periodically to run his hands along Dan’s sides, brushing his nipples and humming with pleasure as they harden with the lightest touch. A slick finger travels up the length of his swelling cock, and Herbert locks eyes with his specimen._

_“Isn’t that better, Danny?”_

Dan seizes up in his cot with an angular jolt, grabbing a topsheet to scream into as his throat constricts with nausea. In his settling panic, he is momentarily ignorant to the quiet presence a foot or so away from his head. Herbert stands with his arms neatly crossed behind his back, brow furrowed in concern as he studies Dan’s obvious distress coolly.

“You were screaming, Daniel. I couldn’t have you waking the whole camp. Go back to sleep.”

Two days later, when Dan again finds himself on an operating table with a solid pain in his belly and and a desperate ache for something he can’t describe, he will finally question Herbert’s rationalization.


End file.
